The Way the World Ends
by allthatremains77
Summary: Dean had somehow expected his end to be an explosion of power and fury, angels and demons, an epic fight when time stopped and the heavens fell. Cas and Sam beside him, going down in a blaze of glory. Not this.


"Sam," Dean called, feeling the blood dripping from his mouth, down his chin. "Sam!"

It wasn't supposed to end this way. Dean had somehow expected his end to be an explosion of power and fury, angels and demons, an epic fight when time stopped and the heavens fell. Cas and Sam beside him, going down in a blaze of glory.

Not this. Not a damn ghost.

This wasn't even supposed to be a difficult hunt. They had come to send away a woman who had clung to her life and her memories and her home far too long, until they were all dust and decay, and she only a sad, flickering replica of what she had been before.

When Sam had come across the story on the second to last page of a small town newspaper, he had told Dean that it would be an easy salt-and-burn, a way to get their minds off of the hell they had been through recently.

A Winchester style vacation.

"Sam!" Dean screamed once more, gripping the floor before him with shaking hands and trying to drag himself forward, to find his little brother. He only managed to move a few inches, his arms giving out in the agony of moving, the metal imbedded in his leg scraping along the dirty floor. When he looked up, he saw her, her dirty brown hair falling into her eyes as she watched him impassively. He didn't think she could really even see him anymore, not as a living person would. Too many years of waiting and longing leaving her to see the world as if it were the ghost and not her, as if he were just a shadow.

He wondered what she had been like, long ago, when she wouldn't have killed three people for some imagined trespass.

Dean thought absentmindedly that they might have to ratchet that number up to five in a short time.

Sam still hadn't responded, and Dean gritted his teeth and dragged himself forward once more, feeling the bones in his elbow grind together. He heaved himself forward over piles of debris with his arms, his legs a dead weight behind him. The ghost woman just watched him move, blinking periodically, looking like she felt her work was done.

It probably was.

But Dean knew that he couldn't give up, not until he at least knew if his brother was okay. Maybe get some sort of closure before he went back to hell.

He could hear all the people he had killed calling for his blood, for his soul, already.

This time, he somehow knew there was no coming back, no miraculous second chance.

 _What's dead should stay dead._

All right, he promised, this time he would. Just as soon as he knew if Sammy was all right.

Despite the shaking and the pain, Dean managed to pull himself over to the pile of rubble he had last seen Sam disappear beneath. He reached forward and feebly pushed at the first thing in his way, a heavy farmers' almanac that must have been in the house when the woman died.

When Sam and Dean had arrived at the house, they had just planned on doing a quick look around the building to scope out the hunt. The house was on the market since its last owner had died, "of natural causes," according to the police. People in the town seemed like they would prefer not to buy a house in which the last three owners had died within a year, though, and the house sat empty, now. They had jimmied the lock and snuck into the house, finding nothing but dust and a dead rat by the second bedroom.

When they had turned to leave, it happened.

The ghost had appeared, Sam had shouted a warning, and then the north side of the house had collapsed, right on top of them, the roof sloping downward haphazardly.

Dean had been out of the way of the worst of it.

Sam, apparently, had not.

Dean choked on dust as he pushed away more of the debris and found Sam's head. The rest of him lay buried still beneath the pile of the old house.

Dean didn't think he would have the strength to move it.

"Sammy," he yelled, as loud as possible, trying to see if he was still breathing.

The ghost stood quietly behind them.

"Sam," cried Dean. "Sam, you have to wake up."

Nothing. If Sam was breathing, Dean couldn't see it.

"No. No, you can't leave me this way. Sam!"

Blood from Dean's forehead dripped down onto Sam, mingling with Sam's own blood. A beam had probably slammed into Dean's head as the roof collapsed. Dean didn't remember, exactly, and he found he didn't care that he couldn't remember.

Maybe the head wound was the reason why the sunlight streaming through the opening in the roof was flickering.

Dean fuzzily shoved away the debris covering Sam's chest so that he could attempt to drag him out of the pile.

Sam didn't even move an inch.

They weren't getting out of this, Dean realized. He would die here. Sam would die here.

He supposed he had known that since the roof had caved in, in an intellectual way, but now he actually knew, deep down, that they were dying.

He could almost feel his heart pumping any blood he had left out of his gaping wounds.

And then Sam's eyes opened.

Blurry, unfocused, but open.

Alive.

"Dean?" The voice was hushed, strained. Dean didn't know how Sam was still managing to draw breaths, under all of the rubble. "Dean, what happened?"

Dean pushed Sam's ridiculously long hair out of his face, smiling even though he knew he must look absolutely horrific through the waterfall of blood and tears.

"Don't worry about that, Sammy. I'm here. I'm right here."

Sam's face twitched, and Dean could tell that he was trying to move his arms, his legs, anything.

"No," Dean gasped. "No, Sam, don't move. I'm going to get you out of here. Don't move."

Dean stayed there, though, stayed next to Sam while the blood pumped out of their veins and the dead woman stood behind them and watched them slowly join her.

Dean couldn't seem to force himself to move.

They were going to go together, this time, Dean thought irrationally. Maybe they could finally rest. Leave the saving of the damn world to someone else.

Maybe he could finally accept that.

And then there was a burst of white light, and a voice that Dean thought he might recognize.

"Hello, Dean."


End file.
